“You’re runnin’ plumb into a heap of trouble, mister man. Throw your rope around the snubbin’ post. Then get on your hind legs an’ do some explainin’. What you chasin’ this girl for?”
The man reddened, looked downward, then up at Deveny. The latter, a pout on his lips, his eyes glowing savagely, walked to where Harlan stood with one arm around the girl, while Lawson, Rogers, Gage, and several other men advanced slowly and stood near him.
CHAPTER VII
SINGLE-HANDED
Noting the concerted movement toward him, Harlan grinned at Barbara, gently disengaged himself from her grasp, and urged her toward the door of the sheriff’s office. She made no objection, for she felt that further trouble impended, and she knew she must not impede any action her rescuer planned.
Reaching the street a few minutes before, she had noted the preparations for the swift tragedy that had followed; and despite her wild desire to escape Deveny’s man, she had halted, fascinated by the spectacle presented by the two men, gambling with death.
She had halted at a little distance, crouching against the front of a building. And while she had been crouching there, trembling with a new apprehension, her pursuer had caught her.
She had hardly been aware of him, and his grasp on her arm she had not resisted, so intense was her interest in what was transpiring. But the sudden ending of the affair brought again into her consciousness the recollection of her own peril, and when she saw Deveny cross the street she broke from the man’s restraining grasp and ran to Harlan, convinced that he—because he seemed to be antagonistic toward the forces arrayed against her—would protect her.